George man charged in Quincy armed robbery

QUINCY – One of three suspects in a late-January armed robbery in Quincy has been charged in Grant County Superior Court with four crimes.

Grant County prosecutors charged Salvador Solorzano Torres, 19, of George, with two counts of first-degree robbery, second-degree theft and second-degree malicious mischief.

On Jan. 29 the Quincy Police Department received a report of a robbery in the 700 block of F Street Southeast. Police interviewed one of the two alleged victims in the robbery, who claimed he had met someone on Snapchat who was selling a cellphone.

He said he and his friend agreed to meet the person to purchase the phone. The victims later changed their story and admitted to police they agreed to purchase marijuana, not a cellphone, from the subject, alleged to be Solorzano Torres, according to court documents.

One of the victims stated that as they were waiting for Solorzano Torres a dark red Cadillac pulled up by them and stopped. Solorzano Torres allegedly got out of the driver’s seat of the Cadillac, approached the driver’s side door of the victim’s vehicle and told the driver to get out and give him his keys.

Solorzano Torres allegedly took the male’s keys at gunpoint and told him to get on the ground. As the victim was on the ground, Solorzano Torres reportedly took the man’s wallet out of his back pocket. Two other unidentified males reportedly got out of the Cadillac and approached the victim’s friend, who was still in the vehicle. The second victim reportedly reached into his pockets and gave the two assailants $500.

“(The victim) stated he saw one of the passengers had what appeared to be a long rifle. (The victim) stated one of the male subjects smashed the front windshield with a bat,” wrote a QPD officer. “(The victim) stated someone fired a shot and hit the back passenger window.”

Officers searched the scene and retrieved a .22-caliber shell casing on the ground near the passenger side door of the victim’s vehicle, as well as a .22-caliber bullet inside of the vehicle. The two victims were both able to identify Solorzano Torres as the driver of the Cadillac from a photo lineup created by police.

Solorzano Torres was on the run for over a month until March 9, when a QPD officer spotted the Cadillac at a gas station in the 200 block of F Street Southeast. Solorzano Torres was found inside the gas station sitting at a table and taken into custody, according to court records.